flying coyotes

The Flying Coyotes are six eight-year-old students at Brightworks, so nicknamed because most of them have been Mackenzie’s students at one point or another at Brightworks – a combination of her first band, the Flying Fish, and her second band, the Coyotes, with a new student that has jumped fearlessly into the mix. The kids have grown and changed with her as their collaborator and it’s exciting to see them embark together on another year! Even on the first day of school, this fierce little band took hold of their bandspace, the tools, the people, and their community with lovely familiarity and ownership.

Buoyed by Mackenzie’s experiences as a third-year Brightworks collaborator and her enthusiasm for her students and their learning, the Flying Coyotes have doing their best to take full advantage of all the different aspects of being a Brightworks student, from learning about how the brain works and learns and working on engineering chairs in the workshop, to doing awesome math problems, setting goals for their year, and blogging about their experiences.

They have been working in the workshop every day on building projects with Sean! Last week, they started out making blueprints of chairs and testing out their first prototypes. This week, the challenge continues with drawing diagrams of their first designs for the other members of the band and then switching so that they follow the directions on someone else’s diagram. The trick is making drawings and notations with accuracy and clarity!

Mackenzie and her band have started writing blog entries to chart their weeks and reflect on what they have been working on. The kids will be posting blog entries every Thursday, and Mackenzie will be posting longer entries on Fridays, with some photo entries throughout the week. Check them out here!